


Chrysanthemum

by alex_skye



Series: Forget-Me-Not [3]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, But we all know it really is, Death from Old Age, Grandpa Kouki, Grandpa Seijuurou, Grandparents & Grandchildren, M/M, Old Age, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:01:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25757788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_skye/pseuds/alex_skye
Summary: In this life, they’re near the end.Honestly, it’s one of the better ones they’ve lived.Minus the bleach white hair and wrinkled hands. Eyesight fading and whatnot.They both lived very long, healthy lives. But never realized it never felt fulfilled until the last moment.The very last one.
Relationships: Akashi Seijuurou/Furihata Kouki
Series: Forget-Me-Not [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867273
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Chrysanthemum

**Author's Note:**

> In many European cultures, chrysanthemums are only used as funeral flowers as they are symbolic of death. In the US, chrysanthemums represent truth and are typically regarded as a cheerful way to honor someone who lived a full life.

* * *

Their fourth and fifth lives are not worth mentioning.

The sixth one was just as bad. 

The seventh was okay but still ended awfully too.

The eighth life was a bit different. 

Furihata Kouki absently wonders if he’ll get used to this. Just staring outside the window while lying in bed. He’s been here for about two weeks now. Honestly, he knows why he’s here. To live out the rest of his days. After all, he’s not that dumb to naively think it’s a little retirement community where he peacefully lazes about his time. 

He knows he has been sent here to die. 

As he got older, his family grew more concerned about him. It had been going on for years now. He kept rambling on and on about a man with red hair. With mismatched eyes. One gold, one red. Swearing that he was real. That he’s met him. Unfortunately, no one in the family ever remembered a red-haired man in Kouki’s life. 

His son brushed him off. His daughter-in-law worries about him. His grandson would bite his lip in curiosity. 

His grandson was the only one who bothered to listen to his story even though he’s told it about a hundred times by now. 

“Masato. You want to hear it again?” He asks. 

“Yeah!” The almost thirteen-year-old exclaims. 

“Fine. He was so...how, do you explain it? Handsome? Bright? Brilliant? Stunning? I don’t know. He just looked like he can take your breath away in a moment. He definitely took mine!” Kouki jokes then continues on, “He had the brightest red hair I’ve ever seen. His eyes were two different colors. One was gold, and the other was red. He was crying so much and screaming my name. It felt so real. I can still hear his voice even now. I can feel the pain in his heart and the sorrow in his voice as he cried out to me.”

Masato didn’t know about that last part of his grandfather’s dream, “Grandpa, how long have you been dreaming of him?” 

“Years. Ever since I could remember.”

”Oh...” 

“There was a dream where I had an older brother who had pretty blue-gray eyes. He was calling me. I was being chased by a boy with the same red hair as that man. I fell off a cliff and nothing afterward since I wake up by then. It was scary.” Kouki says with a shudder. 

“I’ve heard of those types of dreams where you fall. They can be a bit scary.” Masato says.

Kouki randomly blurts out, “Hey, Masa. What do you think those dreams mean? It feels so real, but I’ve never met that man before in my life. Your father thinks I’m going senile. Maybe I am.”

Masato pauses before answering, “I know Dad thinks you’re going senile, but I think he’s worried about you. And about those dreams...even if you never met that man before, it doesn’t make them any less real.” Another pause, “For all, it’s worth Grandpa, I don’t think you’re senile.” 

“Thank you, Masa.” 

Time seems to move so slowly.

So slowly.

All Kouki has is time.

Too much of it.

As the days drag on, the dreams become more vivid. The red-haired man's face is slightly blurry, but Kouki can still hear his voice. He was screaming and crying. The painful echoing of someone suffering from heartbreak. The tears of someone losing someone or something important to them. The emptiness of a loss. The begging and the pleading, Kouki can hear it all. The man, whose face he cannot see, crying out in vain. He was reaching out as if trying to grasp something. His eyes turning red from endless tears made Kouki's heart hurt so much. 

Sometimes, Kouki doesn't dream.

Sometimes, he wakes up, heaving and panting.

Sometimes, Kouki struggles waking up from his sleep.

Sometimes, he wakes up crying.

Sometimes, he pretends not to hear the man.

Sometimes, he tries to convince himself that the man's cries don't affect him.

Sometimes, Kouki wakes up with a hollow feeling in his chest.

Sometimes, he wakes up with the pain of heartbreak.

All these moments from the dreams keep happening. One thing is for certain-Kouki can't stop thinking about them. As if the man haunts him in every waking moment, never leaving him be. Kouki knows this. He knows he will be spending the rest of his days being driven crazy by the dreams. He will always wonder if he's going to the point of insanity. The dreams never used to bother him so much in his younger days. The dreams didn't even start manifesting until his thirties, way after he got married and was having a child on the way.

A part of Kouki always wondered if it's all some sort of wild imagination that he has like his son claims. But, he's not completely sold on the idea. 

And so, another day passes on. 

There was a ruckus outside his room when he awoke the next day. A staff member came into the room with a breakfast tray in hand, smiling as if nothings happening outside the door. Kouki asked her what's going on. With an eerily cheerful voice, she tells him that someone passed away. She also told him that the rest of the members of the retirement community are more than free to visit the wake that the home organized. Apparently, the only family that the man had was a daughter who is on her way to fill out some paperwork and gather his things. 

Curiosity trickles into Kouki's mind. He wonders about the man who passed away. So, he swings by the little shop inside the home to get flowers to pay his respect. 

Kouki goes to the room where the man, unfortunately, passed away in with chrysanthemums in hand. Room 44. 

There was a picture of the man outside his door. Apparently, when a member of the community passes away, the staff puts a photo of them in their younger days.

Kouki glances at the photo. He gasps in disbelief. Chrysanthemums drop to the floor, their fragile petals scattering all over the floor. In front of Kouki's eyes, is the man he had been seeing in his dreams. There's no mistaking it. The red hair. The mismatched eyes. One gold, one red. Unbeknownst to him, Kouki simply started shedding tears. Drip, drop, drip, drop, drip, drop. They continuously fall. He clutches at his chest as if in pain. He has never felt this way before in his entire life. 

He has lived very long, healthy lives. But never realized it never felt fulfilled until the last moment.

The very last one.

In their eighth life together, it ended because they never met. 

**EIGHTH LIFE**

_Akashi Seijuurou: Age 96_

_Furihata Kouki: Age 96_

* * *

**BAD ENDING**

**Author's Note:**

> Btw, there’s no real reason as to why I chose Masato as Kouki’s grandson’s name, I just thought it sounded nice. I’ve heard it a few times in anime and thought it was a nice name. Kouki calls him Masa :,) 
> 
> **Also, Seijuurou's room being number 44 is a reference to his jersey number in Teiko (4) and his Rakuzan jersey number (4). I would've added his Vorpal Swords jersey number (which is also 4), but I didn't want that since in Japanese culture, 4 is actually considred an unlucky number and it means "death". With Akashi Seijuurou, I guess this superstition doesn't apply to him lol. 
> 
> Tbh, there’s not really happy ending for either of the two in this one because they’re really old. Also, Kouki was dreaming of his first and third life with Seijuurou. He still vividly dreams of Emperor Akashi calling out to him, his first life with Seijuurou will always haunt him as a reoccurring dream in every life he’s reborn in even if he doesn’t actually remember it. Yes, he dreamt of his third life where he sadly died at 5 years old. 
> 
> Remember reader, Seijuurou and Kouki are tied by the Red String of Fate so their first life will always invoke some type of emotion (usually heart break or pain) in Kouki whenever he sees it as a dream since he doesn’t know it’s a memory. 
> 
> **WHAT-IF Scenario: AkaFuri finally meet and play chess (with Seijuurou always Kouki) or talk about their youthful days a lot, they also enjoy taking walks in the garden together. Seijuurou likes the way Kouki smiles (even though Kouki thinks he looks ugly because he has wrinkles and Seijuurou thinks it makes his smile even more genuine). Kouki always complains that Seijuurou looks really young for a supposedly 90+ year old and constantly teases him by saying he’s a vampire (lol). Soon, when their time has come, AkaFuri die peacefully in their sleep while holding hands.


End file.
